Chris Peterson....Master Builder.

I am sorry that I have been neglecting the blog a bit as of late, but I had a party to prepare and organize for a 5 year old and it took some time. Not only did Donna and I have a big party planned but as a gift to my VERY active 5 year old I built her a play house. Whaaaaa? Did I just say build. Yup. This coming from the guy who barely made it thru Vo Ag in high school. Building that stupd little box was just too much for me. Which I still have that box. McKenna uses it to store her girl stuff in. Good thing they had us build that box, it would have been tragic for McKenna not to have a box to put her fake princess jewelry in. Those guys teaching Vo Ag really knew what we needed.

So last year I added a room in the basement. Not only did I add a room, I added a Green Bay Packer Room. That's right, painted Packer green, with a great Packer border (picked up from the holy land and sent to me by the Nordic Man), and the bed has official Green Bay Packer sheets. As Bubbles would say, deeeeee heeee eeeecent. Notice the Ross Verba jersey and photo of the renovated Lambeau on opening day in 2003. I really outdid myself. Oh, and as I have said before all of you, the TundraTalk Nation, are welcome anytime to stay in the Packer room. Especially all of you viqueen fans. Especially you queen fans.

Now to bring us up to date I got a bit cocky and one day spewed out to McKenna that I thought I would make her a play house for her birthday. Well, if you have a 4 year old you know, that if you say it, there is no way to take it back. I was stuck. But I felt confident that if I just put my little mind to it, I could make it happen. I am the awesome creator of the Peterson Family Packer Room so I can do it.

So since here in Edmonton the snow doesn't officially go away until May, I had to start building in the garage. I scoured the internet for play house plans and all I found was eleborate designs for play houses nicer than my House. So I was on my own. I sat down and planned out the size and shape. Blair Stefishin, of the Edmonton Stefishin's, looked at it and told me how much wood I would need and I went to Rona and loaded up.

After I brought it home I went to the Used Architecture Warehouse and bought a coulple of windows. Then I started to build. I got really cocky and built all the walls in the garage. Thinking that when the weather cleared I could just go and put it up, in theory. Notice the purple door. McKenna picked the color of the door and I let her paint it. It is going to be a very effeminante shed when she is done with it.

A week or so later the snow cleared and then I could start my build. I put down some gravel and started to lay out the floor and the front patio. So far so good. It was all coming together. My vision was starting to take shape. As the late great George Peppard said on the classic show the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together!" I loved that show. Notice I had to cut a tree back to make room for the house. I got to rent a chain saw. I love man tools. After the saw I went and rented a wood chipper. Oh yeah, I am a man. A man who loves power tools. I kept thinking of Steve Buciemi in Fargo as I was stuffing wood into the chipper. Loved that movie.

Anyway, I was nervous and excited as I started to frame the walls. Of course it was a hard hat area so I wore my hard hat with pride. If McKenna was not careful she may have a Packer themed play house. They all fit together perfectly suprisingly enough. Of course after I had it all framed and was getting ready to go and buy some plywood to put the walls up a neighbor came over and pointed out that my house was not up to code. Well, duh. I built it. He said that it has to be at least 3 feet from an existing fence. Wha? Who the hell would put a shed that far away from the fence. That is stupid. Who cares, the city can take their thee feet and tell the story walking. Too late to move it now.

I managed to get the plywood up on the walls then right on cue, the weather takes a turn on me. Rain for about 5 days straight, AND two nights befor the party, you guessed it, SNOW. May 4th and we get snow. Only in Alberta.

Of course I did all the easy stuff up until now. The roof is the hard part. I tried to do one rafter after another but it just did not work. I did not want a 6 foot roof but I wanted it too look okay. Cory Blashil, of the Edmonton Blashil's, came over and power builded a roof for me in about three hours. That guy can build like no one I have ever seen. He measures then cuts. I have to measure about three times, sit and think about it, measure again, then cut. Anyway, the roof went up and then I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Rain kept us from painting for several days so we would run out and paint whenever there was an opening in the weather for a few hours.

We were running out of time but we got a break on the Saturday before the party and we had about 6 hours of no rain and we painted as much as we could. We got the walls and deck painted and put up tarps to keep it somewhat dry. It worked and on the Sunday of the party we put the final touches on it and it was ready. I put up the window shelf, put in some carpet (that was donated by Jordi Weidman), Donna painted the window frames, I put up the deck rail, and Donna painted it. Done.

Party time came and McKenna had about 15-20 friends over and it was a huge hit. Garner, of the Radio Sonic Garner's, brought his kids Dora Bouncy House over and it was all good. Plenty of fun, sugar, more fun and more sugar.

So that is why I have been away from the blog lately. I will leave you with this video that I saw again last night on a SNL show. Funniest TV moment EVER. Chris Farley, dude, I miss you.